The Price of Coffee

Chapter 4: Life Begins

“Good morning, mighty woman of God. God has great plans for you today.” Clarrisa called outside Tabitha’s door. “I have a class at nine today, so I can’t be late. I need you up and around so we can go over your jobs today.”

Tabitha groaned. “Why are you such a morning person?”

“I am a morning person because I have a faith and hope.” Clarrisa explained.

“Well, I hope you find someone else to be overly cheerful at this early in the morning.”

“It’s not that early, it’s only 6 a.m. I have started coffee. You’ll get used to the new schedule. We will have devotions here in an hour with the teachers and your presence is required.

“Fine, I’m up. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Tabitha whined. When Tabitha entered the living area, she noticed several teachers she met yesterday crowded around the room, she also noticed Tyler was there.

“Our devotion today is over living peaceably with all men. In is from Romans 12:18, and it means if we can, to avoid conflict with one another. However, Paul also understands that may not always be possible” Tabitha thought is was a silly idea to live peaceably with all men. Some people were just stupid or mean and deserved what they got. And before she knew it. Aunt Clarrisa was praying.

“I pray everyone has a productive day, and that we remember to live peacefully with one another. Amen. Okay. Have a blessed day everyone. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Tyler can you hang around for just a minute?”

“Sure, what do you need? Tyler asked

“Let’s step outside and talk, I want Clarrisa to be your teaching assistant.” Clarrisa said

“What? Why would you want that? Tyler questioned

“Several reasons actually, I think you would be a great witness for her. Second, I think she is going to need someone she can relate to at first. It can be difficult to adjust with so many cultural changes. She needs to know whom is trustworthy and whom she needs to steer clear. And third, you’d owe me a huge favor.” Clarrisa answered.

“Humm a huge favor huh? Having the principal of the school owing me a favor might have its advantages.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her and laughed. “Let me pray about it today and I’ll give you your answer this afternoon.”

As Clarissa walked back inside, she called for Tabitha. They sat back down at the table and Clarissa gave her a list of items to be completed each day, once a week, and once a month.

“So, let me get this straight, you want me to clean, cook, do laundry, and clean the toilet? Do realize how gross that is to clean the toilet?”

“Yes, I do. I have cleaned my fair share. However, you do not have to clean the toilet today. Today is laundry and the shower. Now do you need help with anything before I go. I wanted to get to the school early to work check on teacher lesson plans.”

“Yes, I have one question. How do you make the coffee? I have not seen a coffee maker here. I wanted some more this morning.”

Clarrisa laughed. “Sorry I forgot to show you that. I don’t have a coffee maker; you have to make it the PNG way. You pour the water into this pot, add grounds, boil for 5 minutes and then pour into the coffee plunger.”

“So why not just get a coffee pot? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Easier yes, practical, no. I know you’ve noticed the power isn’t exactly stable here. The power surges would ruin the coffee pot. And then I still couldn’t use it when the power is out.” If I lived in the city, I might would use one. But here, we mostly use a large generator for our electricity.”

Clarrisa told Tabitha goodbye then headed to the college. Tabatha fixed herself, literally, a fresh pot of coffee. She then gets started on the laundry. She looks for the washing machine in all the places a washing machine could be. She finally decides to call her aunt, who tells her, it is outside around the back of the house. Tabitha thinks this is odd but looks anyway. She finds the washing machine and then stares at it. “What is this? I have never seen a washing machine like this one before. The washing machine had two tubs had two tubs, a timer, and an option for drain.” She calls her aunt back again.

“Aunt Clarrisa, how do I work this thing?” Clarissa hears a lot of noise in the background, she can hear some people are yelling.

“Give me a minute. I’ll sent Tyler over. I am handling a situation.” Clarrisa hangs up the phone. A few minutes later Tyler shows up.

“What do you need, princess?”

“I can’t figure out this contraption my aunt calls the washing machine.” Clarrisa says. “How do I start it? This looks nothing like any washing machine I have ever seen.”

“This is a standard washing machine for this area. The newer ones are really expensive. Okay, so first you must turn on the facet and let the washing machine fill up, when it is full you turn it off, add laundry soap, your aunt must have some around here, then you turn the knob to 15 and it will wash your laundry for 15 minutes. You must come out and drain it, and then start all back over for the rinse cycle.”

“What are living back in the old west or something. Why can’t she just get a real washing machine?”

“Awe Princess, needs to know how to do things a little differently.” Tyler laughed.

Tabitha hits him in the arm, she notices it’s like hitting a brick wall. However, it only makes him laugh harder.

“You hit like a little girl. On a more serious note. You will hear people say this is like living in the old west but with cell phones. Now any other questions before I head back to my real job.”

Tabitha stares at him, contemplating how to answer that question and decides to return the favor. Smiling seductively, she says, “Well, I have things, I am sure you could help me with, itches that need scratching.”

Tyler turns red and stammers, trying to come up with an excuse to gracefully leave when Tabitha starts laughing. “You should see your face. It is almost the color of strawberries.” Tyler turns a deeper shade of red when he realizes he was teasing her.

“I believe I need to head back to class now, you can call your aunt, if you need any other help.”   Tyler turns to leave and Tabitha tries to call him back but he ignores her. Now what is she going to do. He didn’t finish showing her how to run the washing machine. However, after a few minutes of playing with the knobs, she figures out the second tub is for spinning out the laundry. It took her over an hour to wash the laundry but she did it.

She heads back inside to do the second job of the day, the shower. She looks at the shower and finds there is two knobs, one for water and one for the shower head. She notices a blue 5-gallon bucket with a really big scooper inside the bucket. “Don’t tell me, please don’t tell me.” Tabitha calls her aunt again. “Aunt Clarissa, where is the hot water?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, there is no water heater. You will have to heat the water on the stove or the electric kettle and then pour it in the blue bucket.”

“You have got to be kidding me. What have you and mother done to me? No real washing machine, and no running hot water. How am I supposed to take a real shower?” Clarissa could tell Tabitha was on the verge of tears. She will miss the people who did this for her one a regular basis.

Clarrisa sighed, it has already been a long day and it’s not even noon. “Tabitha, calm down, you will be fine. You can do this.”

“No, I can’t she cried. I can’t do this. Are you kidding me?”

“Yes, you can. Look, I can’t leave right now but I’ll show you how to do the hot water when I get home at lunch time. That’s only an hour away. Or I can send Tyler back over, he should be finishing up his next class, he won’t have another one until after lunch.”

“Tyler probably won’t come back over, I embarrassed him really bad earlier. He left without even finishing teaching me how to use the washing machine.”

Clarissa chuckled. “I wonder what you did, Tyler is pretty hard to embarrass. I have to go but I’ll be back soon. Just go have a coffee or something. Oh, and I made up tuna salad in the refrigerator, so you wouldn’t have to worry about lunch on your first day.”

“Okay, I’ll go watch TV or something until you get here. Bye.” Tabatha hung up the phone and wondered if Aunt Clarissa would be able to talk Tyler into coming back over. If she was being honest with herself, she thought Tyler was hot, but she had a feeling anything to do with Tyler would have to be long term. He didn’t seem like the short-term relationship kind of guy.

 By the time lunch was over, Clarrisa had shown Tabitha how to fix a “shower” and Tabitha felt a little more confident in her ability to do her job.

“What did you do to embarrass Tyler, he refused to come back over. Something about being a princess and you were smart enough to figure it out yourself.” Clarrisa asked.

“He was teasing me and I was teasing him right back. He just got a little embarrassed that’s all.” Tabitha answered.

After lunch Clarrisa headed back over the school and Tabitha cleaned the shower, and then cleaned herself up and then started the task of “cooking dinner”. Tabitha had never cooked a day in her life and felt a little overwhelmed about what to fix. Thankfully, her aunt had left her instructions on the fridge for dinner.

“Tabitha, I realize you probably haven’t cooked a day in your life. So I wrote down a simple recipe of chicken vegetable soup.”

“This shouldn’t be too hard.” Tabitha said to herself out loud. Let’s see, I need chicken, carrots, peas, green beans, and corn. I place the chicken in the pot. Then I need to peal and cut up carrots. Check. Shell peas, wait what. How do I shell peas, or snap green beans, or shuck and kernel the corn? Aunt Clarrisa you have lost your mind. Oh well. I will figure it out. I refuse to call that woman again today.”

Tabatha set to work attempting to make dinner. Everything seemed to be going well. She found videos on shelling peas, and shucking corn. So, when Clarissa came home at dinner time, it smelled delicious.

“I see dinner went a little bit better today.” Clarissa said.

“Yea, I think I got it all figured out. I will tell you; shucking corn is gross.” Tabitha said.

Clarissa laughed, “Yea not my favorite job either. I can do it but don’t like it. How much longer does it have?”

“It should be done.” Tabitha said as she grabbed a couple of bowls out of the cabinet. As they ate, Clarissa seemed to have a hard time chewing the green beans. She finally took one out of her mouth and looked.

“Tabitha, honey, this is a pea pod, not a green bean.”

“What, I thought the big yellow ones were the peas and little ones were the green beans?”

“No, it is the other way around, the big yellow ones are the green beans, and little green ones are the peas.”

Tabitha didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She tried so hard to get it right.

“Tabitha, why didn’t you can me, if you weren’t sure?” Clarrisa asked.

“I wanted to do it on my own for once today. I felt like an i***t having to call you all day.” Tabitha sat almost on the verge of tears.

“Tabitha, it is okay to ask for help. One thing you will learn in this life is, you will always need help for something. God created us to help each other.” Clarrisa said.

Tabitha cut her off before she could go any further. “I really don’t want a sermon right now.”

“Okay, how about if I do the dishes tonight and you go rest. It’s been an adjustment today.” Clarrisa said softly.